June 4, 2019

The authors of
the GandCrab ransomware strain are shutting their ransomware-as-a-service
portal, allegedly walking away with a cool $150m.

The announcement
appeared on a hacker forum, and cybersecurity researcher ‘Damian’ tweeted the
news on 1 June.

GandCrab, which
first appeared in January 2018, operated using a ransomware-as-a-service
(RaaS) model – meaning the authors aren’t the only people using it (if they use
it at all). Instead, they let others launch their own campaigns with it and
take a small cut of the profits.

In a message on
the hacking forum, the perpetrators explained that their broader community of
customers had made far more money:

For all the
good things come to an end. For the year of working with us, people have earned
more than $2 billion.

They said that
the community earned $2.5m per week on average, adding that they personally
earned over $150m per year as part of the cybercrime venture.

We
successfully cashed this money and legalized it in various spheres of white
business both in real life and on the internet.

GandCrab is a
slick operation and its logo, modern web interface, vanity Dark Web URL and
unusual choice of the Dash cryptocurrency for payments gives it an innovative
and professional veneer.

The US State
Department already collects information on visa applicants such as previous
addresses and contact information. The new policy, which went into effect on
Friday, requires “most” visa applicants, including temporary visitors, to list
their social media “identifiers” in a drop-down menu along with other personal
information, the
Hill reported.

Those social
media identifiers will be used as one part of a background check that includes
reviews of watchlists maintained by the US. At this point, the drop-down menu
only includes the big social media platforms, though an official told the Hill
that the form will soon accommodate all sites that visa applicants may use.

Visa applicants
have the option of saying that they don’t use social media, but the official
told the publication that lying could lead to “serious immigration consequences.”

Sayonara, music lovers: you won’t have Apple’s
much-maligned, bloated iTunes to kick around anymore. Instead, you’ll have to
aim your kicks in three directions, since Apple has decided to split its
18-year-old digital hub into three standalone desktop apps called Music,
Podcasts and TV.

Splitting up
iTunes into three desktop apps will be similar to how those services are
already divided on iPhones and iPads. According to CNN,
Apple is keeping iTunes as a standalone iOS app and on Windows PCs.

Content
storefronts like iTunes have pulled disappearing acts on content before. Like,
say, when Apple removed movies from its Canadian Store and left a miffed
Canadian man purchased-movie-less.

Fear not (or
rather, fear as much as normal, given the above content whisk-aways), for
iTunes’ disappearance isn’t going to mean that your libraries or previous
purchases are going up in smoke. They’ll be maintained in each new app on Mac
computers, an Apple spokesperson told CNN.

ACS

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